Homemade Hand Tools

This afternoon I emerged from the shop here at Fine Woodworking after having put together a pretty neat little picture framing jig. It’s designed for cutting precise miters and perfectly matching picture frame sides (meaning it has a stop block set-up meant to cut pairs of picture frame sides to precisely the same length). It’ll be featured in an upcoming video workshop I’m going to be shooting later this month on picture frame moldings and frame assembly. Anyhow, I digress.

I arrived at my cube to find my neighbor, Matt Kenney, working on a new gallery for handmade hand tools. This is something I’ve honestly never tried. Matt’s pretty crafty when it comes to homemade marking gauges, knives, grooving planes, and such – and he’s put out a call for submissions to the new gallery. Figured I’d let you all know. I need a new project so I’m hoping to see some cool inspiration! I’ve been stuck behind the computer – and the camera – for too long now, unable to work on any actual woodworking!

Yeah, I have yet to build a pair of those homemade grooving planes but that’s in my list of project plans. Lie-Nielsen’s selling the 1/8-in. irons for them (no, we don’t get any kickbacks – all on the up-and-up).

I’d also like to to try making the “ultimate scratch stock” although I’m not sure what that would be – what would make it the “ultimate.” LOL